Category Archives: Media Criticism

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

The Most Polarizing President

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Evar:

Obama, by the way, holds the record for the most polarized first and second years in office, too. Which means Obama has set a record for polarization every year he’s been in office.

So now is as good a time as any to remind people one of the core claims made by Barack Obama during his presidential campaign wasn’t simply that he would heal the planet; he would also heal the nation’s political breach. He would elevate the national debate. Reason would prevail over emotion. He would do away with what he called the “50 plus one” style of governing. Obama would “turn the page” on the “old politics” of division and anger. He would end a politics that “breeds division and conflict and cynicism.” He would help us to “rediscover our bonds to each other and … get out of this constant petty bickering that’s come to characterize our politics.” He would “cast off the worn-out ideas and politics of the past.”

Yeah, he lied about lots of stuff. And the rubes bought it.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space

More Lunar Base Thoughts

7 Comments

Over at Open Market, where I also discuss the Romney advisers.

[Update late afternoon]

More from Doug Messier.

Newt needs to make an issue of this before Tuesday: “Governor Romney, you said that you’d fire someone who came up with a costly plan for lunar activities, and yet you just hired someone as a space adviser who was already fired for doing just that…”

Also, here’s Marcia Smith’s report on the Romney non-event today.

[Saturday morning update]

On the 26th anniversary of the Challenger loss, Byron York has a report on the two candidates’ space policies.

[Update a few minutes later]

“Mitt Romney would have fired Mike Griffin.” I’m guessing that Jim Muncy had some input into this, and that it may become a Gingrich talking point in the next couple days. I just fed Jake Tapper some questions to ask him tomorrow morning on This Week.

Business, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space

Gingrich’s Space Plan

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Is it science fiction?

Ummmmm…no.

By the way, did anyone else wonder why he asked about Atlas at the Cape, when Falcon 9 is already designed to human-rating specifications? Surely he’s aware of SpaceX.

[Update a few minutes later]

This is the most depressing thing I’ve seen all day, at least in terms of space policy:

ROMNEY WILL RESTORE AMERICA’S SPACE PROGRAM

Scott Pace, Chair of the Romney Space Policy Advisory Group
Director, Space Policy Institute, The Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University
Former Assistant Director for Space and Aeronautics, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy

Mark Albrecht
Chairman of the Board, USSpace
Former Executive Secretary, National Space Council

Eric Anderson
Chairman and CEO, Space Adventures
Chairman, Commercial Spaceflight Federation

Gene Cernan
Commander, Apollo XVII

Bob Crippen
Pilot, First Space Shuttle Mission
Former Director, NASA Space Shuttle Program

Michael Griffin
Former NASA Administrator
Former Head of the Space Department, The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory

Peter Marquez
Former Director of Space Policy, National Security Council
Former Director of Special Programs, Department of Defense

William Martel
Associate Professor of International Security Studies, The Fletcher School at Tufts University
Former Alan B. Shepard Chair of Space Technology and Policy Studies, Naval War College

This is the first thing that I’ve seen that makes me want to see Obama reelected. It almost certainly implies that a Romney presidency means a resurrection of Constellation.

[Update a few minutes later]

I’m both surprised and disappointed that Eric Anderson has signed on to this.

This is potentially a perfect storm of space policy disaster.

[Afternoon update]

It is very frightening to see the name of the once (and future?) NASA administrator there. Top. Men.

[Update a few minutes later]

Heh: “So Mitt Romney is looking to Mike Griffin for space advice? I thought Mitt didn’t like impractical $200 billion lunar projects.”

Culinary, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society

More Media Dietary Ignorance

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So, here we have a young woman in the UK who has has eaten nothing but Chicken McNuggets™ her whole life, and is in poor health, but a mystery remains:

…despite a diet that regularly means she eats at least a third more than the 56g of fat recommended by experts, she manages to keep relatively trim.

This may be down to the amount of exercise she does or to her metabolism.

Or maybe, just maybe, eating fat is not what makes you fat.

It is an awful diet, to be sure, but not because of what’s in it (fat) but because of what is not (healthy vegetables). It has a reasonable balance of protein and carbs (though it would be better if the carbs weren’t a batter, and could be a little lower). It’s the lack of nutrients that is killing her, not the fat.

Business, Economics, Mathematics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Space

NASA’s Irrational Approach To Risk

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Bob Zubrin asks how much an astronaut is worth. I don’t think that this is historically accurate, though:

The attempted Hubble desertion demonstrates how a refusal to accept human risk has led to irresponsible conduct on the part of NASA’s leadership. The affair was such a wild dereliction of duty, in fact, that O’Keefe was eventually forced out and the shuttle mission completed by his replacement.

That’s not how I remember it. I recall at the time that I thought, and even advocated, that O’Keefe step down, because he had demonstrated himself unable to do the job, being traumatized by having to tell the Columbia families and friends on the tarmac at KSC that their loved ones weren’t coming home, which is probably what caused his timidity about Hubble. But I’m aware of no evidence that he was “forced out” over the decision. I thought that he simply wanted out of the job and took the best offer that came along. The administration would have been loath to remove an administrator, knowing how hard it is to find a good one. Someone should write a letter to the Reason editor on this. Bob either needs to substantiate this with a credible citation, or the magazine should run a correction. Because I think it’s wishful thinking on his part.

[Update a few minutes later]

Bad link, it’s fixed now, sorry.

[Mid-afternoon update]

While I criticized O’Keefe at the time, I didn’t actually disagree with the Hubble decision at the time. The problem that I saw with it was that it was based on irrational criteria. All the focus was on astronaut safety, and no one seemed to be considering how disastrous it would be if we lost another orbiter. NASA had no shortage of astronauts, but there were only three birds left in the fleet, and we would have had to complete ISS with only two, if the program survived at all. Add to that the fact that we probably could have launched an improved Hubble replacement for the cost of the repair mission, and the decision to do it was irrational in its own way, driven by an emotional attachment to the telescope that had shown so many wonders over the past decade.